Caught in the Crossfire
by cowgirlangel95
Summary: Seven year old Maya was sitting on the floor of her closet, listening to the sounds of her parents arguing again. And the fighting was getting worse. Their voices cut through the walls easily, and Maya cold hear everything being said, caught in the crossfire once again. Based on the lyrics of Carrie Underwood's new single 'Little Toy Guns'


_**A/N: Hey everyone. I thought of this ficlet after listening to Carrie Underwood's new single, 'Little Toy Guns'. Personally, I didn't care for the music, too rockfish/ popish for me, but I loved the lyrics, and I thought they would fit Maya perfectly.**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Girl Meets World or 'Little Toy Guns'**_

"Why aren't you ever here to take care of things?" she heard her mother, Katy Hart, yell.

"I could ask you the same thing! You're always out and about doing whatever the heck you want, then come home and complain instead of doing what you're supposed to be doing!" her father yelled back.

"Excuse me? 'Out and about'?! When do I have the time for that?! _I've_ been working double and triple shifts so we can try and raise our daughter, get the plumbing and other things fixed around here, and try to pay off _your_ gambling debts! And look where that's gotten us… NO WHERE because you take whatever money I've made and plunge yourself deeper into debt. Look at our home! It's in shambles, and I don't have enough money to fix that, or to feed our daughter for the rest of the week!"

"Shut up, woman!" he hissed back. "You're out of line!"

"How so? Because you can't face the truth? I can't believe I married someone like that!"

Seven year old Maya was sitting on the floor of her closet, amongst the coats and dresses that hung above her. Clutched in her hand was a silver coated, plastic, heart shaped locket that she received a few years ago. It was meant for playing dress up, but Maya wasn't the type of girl to do those things, despite how many dress up clothes people bought her when she was younger. She had put away all of the scratchy and glittery outfits away two years ago, but couldn't part ways with the locket. It may have sounded silly, and one could tell that it was cheap thanks to some of the silver paint chipping off of it after years of daily wear, but she valued what she had put inside it the day she got it… which she was currently looking at now.

Inside of it lay a photo of her mom, dad, and her. It was the perfect family; it was flawless.

But tonight wasn't a pretty picture. That flawless family in the photo was gone. Her parents were fighting… again. To Maya, it felt like they had some sort of argument every night that week. Their fighting had been off and on for the past month or so, but this was the first time it had happened every day, whether it was about the dripping faucet in the kitchen that was starting to make the bottom of the sink rust, or something else that had gone wrong. And the fighting was getting worse. Their voices cut through the walls easily, and Maya could hear everything being said, caught in the crossfire once again.

After she heard her dad yell another insult to her mom, Maya felt a sharp pain in her heart as she covered her ears and allowed the tears to start to trickle down her face.

_Why can't words be like little toy guns?_ Maya thought. _They don't sting or hurt or nothing! Just the 'bang bang' we say when we 'fire'… no smoke, not bullets, no pain, no damage to anyone._

The sound of her parents' voices drowned out her thoughts, and she couldn't tell if that it was because they were closer to her room, or they just raised their voices even more. Maya prayed that tonight didn't end violently for them. She saw her father raise his hand towards her mother once before, ready to strike, but he didn't for whatever reason that was. Maybe he came to his senses before he brought his hand to his wife's face; maybe he saw Maya out of the corner of his eye. Whatever reason it was, he spared Katy from being injured that night.

Maya desperately wished that there was something she could do to get them to stop, wave some sort of white flag to get them to cease, or find out that they were – somehow – faking it all, and everything they said to each other they didn't mean after all. But it wasn't a game that they could call quits and leave their plastic pistols in the yard and all the noise would be gone.

_I wish words were like little toy guns,_ little Maya repeated in her mind, _because it breaks me to hear them like this. I just want to fix this._

Another curse flew through the air.

_Or run,_ she added.

Maya rested her head on her knees and gently rocked herself back and forth as her tears soaked through her pajama pants. _I wish words were like little toy guns… no sting, no hurt, no pain, no damage done._

_**A/N #2: Hope you liked it. If you wouldn't mind leaving a review that would be great :) ~cowgirlangel95 out!**_


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